Echotitbits – Nigeria News

Tag: Tech

  • Facebook Launches Avatars across Sub-Saharan Africa to Engage Users in Dynamic Way

    Facebook Launches Avatars across Sub-Saharan Africa to Engage Users in Dynamic Way

    Facebook Monday launched Avatars in Africa to give people new ways to express themselves online.

    Avatars are digital personas that enable people to engage across Facebook and Messenger in a more personal and dynamic way.

    Avatars include hundreds of global sticker packs and integrations with GIF providers and can also be shared across Facebook and Messenger by: setting as Profile Picture; sharing to News Feed; and using on Gaming Profile.

    You can also use your personalised avatar to share a range of emotions and expressions via a digital persona that is unique to you.

    There are many ways you can use your avatar including in comments, stories, messenger and soon, text posts with backgrounds too.

    With so many emotions and expressions to choose from, avatars let you share your authentic reactions and feelings with family and friends across the app. You can customise your avatar with hairstyles, complexions, outfits, COVID-19 support stickers and more.

    “To create your avatar, go to the Facebook or Messenger comment composer, click on the ‘smiley’ button, and then the sticker tab. Click ‘Create Your Avatar.’

    “Facebook is home to some of your most personal content and we want to allow people to share and react to that content in the most personalised way possible.

    “We’re excited to give people more options to convey their identity on Facebook, allowing them to share in a more personal, light-hearted way,” said Regional Director, Facebook Africa, Nunu Ntshingila.

    Idowu Sowunmi

  • Nigerian UK-based robotics engineer launches initiative to revolutionise tech in Africa

    Nigerian UK-based robotics engineer launches initiative to revolutionise tech in Africa

    Awarri – a pan African enabler of Robotics and advanced Artificial intelligence has launched in Africa with the aim of preparing African youths for the future of work and enabling them to take on some of Africa’s biggest challenges.

    In a statement made available to Echotitbits Saturday, the founder, Nigerian-UK based Robotics Engineer, Silas Adekunle, stated that Awarri has a mission to revolutionize the tech ecosystem in Africa and indeed Nigeria.

    Adekunle, a technology entrepreneur, known for creating the world’s first intelligent (augmented reality) gaming in the world, also announced that the organization is in partnership with Union Bank to introduce a first of its kind robotics training and mentoring programme for students ages 11-16 in Nigeria, starting in Lagos, through their edu360 platform.

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    “This will equip students with requisite knowledge of Robotics and Artificial intelligence as they continue with their mission of building the Africa of our dreams”, he stated.

    According to information on its website, Awarri is derived from the Yoruba language word, “Awari”, which means seek and find.

    Adekunle was born and raised in Nigeria. He earned a first class degree in robotics from the University of the West of England.

    Echotitbits gathered that as a result of the success recorded when he released MekaMon, the world’s first gaming robot, in 2017, with sales of 500 bots that generated $7.5 million, according to The Guardian, Adekunle received support from various organisations such as London Venture Partners ($10 million) and in the same year, his company, Reach Robotics signed a deal with Apple securing exclusive sales in Apple stores.

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    “Impressed by the quality of his robots and their ability to show emotion with subtly-calibrated movements, Apple priced his four-legged “battle-bots” at $300 and has put them in nearly all of its stores in the United States and Britain.

    “Early customers skew towards male techies but a growing number of parents are buying the robots for their children to get them interested in STEM, Adekunle told Forbes in an interview this year”, Allafrica.com reported.

    Tobiloba Kolawole

  • Gokada founder, Fahim Saleh gruesomely murdered in US

    Gokada founder, Fahim Saleh gruesomely murdered in US

    New York Police Department (NYPD) Tuesday says a man believed to be Fahim Saleh, the founder of Nigeria’s motorbike hailing company, Gokada, has been brutally murdered in his New York condo home.

    The police explained the gruesome murder of the 33-year-old tech entrepreneur, saying Saleh’s corpse, disembered with an electric saw was found limbless and headless in a building on E. Houston St. at Suffolk St. on the Lower East side, New York. The dismembered body parts were found at the scene of the murder, New York Police reported.

    “We have a torso, a head that’s been removed, arms, and legs. Everything is still on the scene. We don’t have a motive,” NYPD spokesman Sgt. Carlos Nieves said.

    Saleh, a Bentley University alumnus , who apart from his Gokada business in Nigeria is a co-founder of Pathao together with Hussain M Elius and Shifat Adnan in 2015, bought the condo home in 2019 for $2.2 million, according to New York Post.

    Police were alerted to the seventh-floor condo by the victim’s sister who called 911 after discovering her brother’s headless and armless corpse in his home.

    An NYPD spokesman said she came calling Tuesday because she hadn’t seen her brother in a day, then discovered his dismembered corpse.

    While it is not clear what the motive for Saleh’s murder was, sources, according to New York Daily revealed that an elevator surveillance camera may have caught the victim’s last moments. It shows the victim getting into the elevator Monday, followed quickly by a second man, dressed in a suit, wearing gloves, a hat and a mask over his face.

    Wednesday morning, Gokada staff in Nigeria woke up to the shocking news of the death of their founder and CEO, expressing “deep sadness and regret”.

    In a statement posted on their Linkedin page, the company described the Saleh’s demise as “sudden and tragic”.

    “Fahim was a great leader, an inspiration and a positive light for all of us at Gokada, and we are completely heartbroken by the sad news.

    Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and all those who are currently feeling the same pain that we feel right now. Fahim’s vision and belief in us will always be with us, a reminder that we can achieve whatever we set our minds to”, the statement read.